Sunday Musings - Into Ind We Go!
With thanks to Liberty for nudging me down this particular rabbit hole, today’s Sunday Musings wanders far from the rain slicked streets of Altdorf and the familiar misery of the Old World. This time we are heading south, beyond the Mountains of Mourn and off the edges of most well thumbed maps, into the steaming jungles, spice heavy cities, and god haunted horizons of Ind. It is a land that has lingered for decades as little more than a footnote, a trade reference, or a whispered aside in campaign books, yet the deeper one digs the clearer it becomes that Ind may be one of the most fascinating and unsettling regions Games Workshop ever sketched into existence.
Ind does not feel like a simple cultural analogue or a fantasy remix in the way the Empire or Bretonnia do. It feels like a collision zone. Here mercantile ambition grinds against ancient faiths, Elven imperialism brushes up against human kingdoms ruled by rajas, and the jungle itself seems complicit in the land’s hostility. If the Old World is defined by mud, plague, and bureaucracy, then Ind is defined by heat, incense, superstition, and the constant sense that something unseen is watching from just beyond the treeline. Survival here is not merely a matter of steel and courage but of ritual correctness and spiritual awareness.
Faith in Ind is not a comfort. It is a necessity. The people live beneath the gaze of countless gods, spirits, and semi divine powers, from widely revered figures like Gilgadresh and Brahmir to local deities worshipped only in a single valley or city district. Chief among them is She’ar Khawn, the eight armed tiger god whose worship blurs the line between protector and predator. Religion here is pluralistic and deeply pragmatic. You pray not because it makes you righteous but because failing to pray might draw the wrong sort of attention. Temples blaze with gold and gemstones while the streets around them sink into poverty, reinforcing the idea that the gods are rich, powerful, and entirely capable of indifference.
To an Old World pilgrim raised on Sigmarite certainty, Ind would be overwhelming. There is no single creed, no universal moral authority, only an endless web of obligations and taboos. Every journey becomes a negotiation with the divine. Which god rules this river. Which spirit guards that mountain pass. Which shrine must be honoured before nightfall. In such a landscape, Chaos does not arrive as a clearly defined enemy so much as an ontological threat. When daemons appear in a land already thick with gods, the distinction between corruption, divinity, and omen becomes dangerously blurred.
Despite its apparent isolation, Ind has never truly been alone. Long before human traders pushed caravans along the Spice Route or the Ivory Road, the Elves had already sunk their talons into the region. The High Elves established trade outposts such as the City of Spires and fortified the surrounding seas with alabaster strongholds like the Tower of the Sun. These were not merely commercial ventures but expressions of Elven control, attempts to impose order and predictability on a land that resisted both. Most telling of all is the Everqueen’s ritual pilgrimage to Ind, undertaken every decade to help restrain the influence of Morrslieb. That single detail reframes the region entirely. Ind is not peripheral to the world’s fate. It is part of the machinery that keeps reality from unraveling.
Where the High Elves left wards and white stone, the Dark Elves left blood. Lokhir Fellheart’s raids along Ind’s coasts are legendary even among the Druchii, not simply for their brutality but for their symbolic cruelty. The sacking of the Temple of Gilgadresh was not just an act of piracy but a theological violation, a deliberate attempt to break something sacred. From this atrocity came the Red Blades, weapons forged from bloodsteel and quenched in Indan blood, carried by corsairs who turned sacrilege into identity. These acts did not fade into history. They became scars that still throb beneath the surface of Indan culture.
The jungles themselves are no less hostile. Ind’s Beastmen are not the familiar horned brutes of the Drakwald. The so called Bengal Beastmen are tiger headed predators, cunning, ritualistic, and disturbingly intelligent. They stalk their territory with purpose rather than frenzy and demand offerings from nearby settlements. Their lair, the Eye of the Tiger cave, is a place locals speak of only in whispers. Leave meat and rice and you might pass unnoticed. Fail to do so and the jungle answers with claws and fangs. There are rumours linking these creatures to weretigers or to cult traditions older than Chaos itself, but whatever their origin they feel native to the land. They are not invaders. They belong.
For all its dangers, Ind is also one of the great arteries of global trade. The Spice Route and the Ivory Road bind the Old World to Cathay and the distant east, carrying silk, jade, incense, and rare magical curiosities westward while exporting gold, steel, and ambition in return. Among these goods are objects like Scrivener’s Candles, prized for their supposed ability to enhance memory and intellect, though in typical Warhammer fashion such gifts rarely come without hidden costs. Trade brings wealth, but it also brings corruption, ideas, and enemies.
In Marienburg, this exchange has given rise to an Indic quarter thick with spice smoke and whispered deals. It is here that figures like Venk Kataswaran, lord of the Golden Lotus Dreaming House, thrive. He is a reminder that not all Warhammer villains wear armour or command armies. His power lies in addiction, debt, blackmail, and human misery, all wrapped in silk and civility. In many ways he is more frightening than a daemon prince, because he feels entirely plausible.
Chaos, inevitably, did not ignore Ind. During the End Times, champions such as Arbaal the Undefeated and the Slaaneshi monstrosity Dechala carved paths of devastation through the region. Yet what makes these incursions particularly fascinating is the theological chaos they introduced. In a land already drowning in gods, what does Chaos look like. Another pantheon. A blasphemy. A rival cult. That Ind survived at all speaks volumes about the resilience of its people and the sheer stubborn power of belief. Faith here is not gentle, but it is formidable.
For decades, Ind has remained a tantalising absence in Warhammer lore, a suggestion rather than a setting. With Grand Cathay now fully realised in The Old World, that absence feels more noticeable than ever. Ind sits perfectly positioned as a bridge between east and west, a setting ripe for trade wars, religious conflict, naval campaigns, and stories where Chaos is only one of many existential threats. If Cathay represents order enforced beneath the gaze of immortal dragons, then Ind represents order endlessly negotiated beneath a thousand squabbling gods. It is strange, dangerous, and spiritually suffocating, and that may be precisely why it remains one of Warhammer’s most compelling forgotten corners.